Articles Tagged ‘Activism’

Two years ago, Idle No More burst onto Canada’s political scene as a celebration of Indigenous spirit and an expression of mass anger at the Harper government’s attacks on Indigenous and Treaty rights, its dismantlement of environmental protections and consultations, and its indifference to the plight of murdered and missing Indigenous women.

Quebec’s movement against climate disaster has been given a major boost by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the former student leader who just received the Governor General’s Literary Award for his book on the 2012 student strike.

The September 21 People’s Climate March in New York City was a huge success. Over 310,000 people consisting of hundreds of contingents of various origins and interests marched in New York (some have put the number of marchers as high as 400,000). The organizers report that 2,807 similar actions took place in 166 countries during that weekend.

Some estimate that in the state of Chihuahua alone, 40 activists have been killed since December 2006, something likened to an ideological cleansing of environmental and human rights activists in the state.

Environmental activists, climate justice organizers and Indigenous people are preparing the Defend Our Coast rally on Monday (Oct. 22) in Victoria, B.C. But as people voice their opposition to oil sands, pipelines and tankers on the coast, why have decades of struggle to protect the Earth not succeeded in changing the growth-based economy?

While big marches and sit-ins during the struggle for black rights and an end to the Vietnam War were effective tools for promoting change, such tactics in North America now appear to be losing steam as effective tactics.

Today, it’s widely acknowledged that the “deinstitutionalization” of psychiatric survivors has been a total failure and fraud; it was from the very start. Why? Because of government incompetence and negligence, poor urban planning, and public indifference to “discharged” psychiatric survivors and other poor, marginalized and stigmatized people in our communities.

This is an account of David’s burial for those who could not attend. His deep green burial ceremony was a reflection of his deep green beliefs. It was a moving tribute to a man who devoted his life to fighting for the Earth and all living beings.

Published since 1963, Canadian Dimension is a forum for debate on important issues that face the Canadian Left today, and a source for national and regional politics, labour, economy, world affairs and art.